So having accumulated 15,000 bonga points passively, I decided to check out what I can do with that and I think Safaricom is taking us for a ride with that program, It used to have a range of very nice phones for these but its like they were pulled back. So just a general question, which telecom in Kenya do you think has the best genuine loyalty program?

Bonga points is no longer fixed to any product. I think they have attached a commercial value to each bonga point. For instance, 1 bonga = 0.30cents.

So what you have is like 4,500bob. You can add some amount and get the device you want or prefer to have.

Remember this is just a way for the service provider to reward you for being loyal since the only contract you have is for you to pay for a service and the service provider to ensure you receive what you have paid for.

Also, back then, call rates, sms, data used to be expensive and competition was a bit on the low side. Still 10bob that could get you around 30 seconds of talk time/1MB of data when Bonga was launched, will now get you around 2 minutes talk/15MB data.

Still that bonga has remained fixed 1bonga = 10bob spent. So the economies of scale do not favour Safaricom to provide great offers anymore for Bonga. But atleast, you can now get anything with Bonga.

That said, Telkom has great rewards for daily data. You need 800 points from spending 800bob to get 400MB daily data.

If you check as per my explanation, it fits in to what you got. For example, 22,000 bonga X 0.30cents = 6,600bob. Now add that to 3,400/= that is roughly 10k the phone’s worth.

Bonga points are no longer of value as before since cost of communication has gone down. Almost by 80% when Bonga points was launched. So there is no way you are going to expect the same value as before yet you are spending less and receiving more on Safaricom’s products. Unlike before, people could spend more and receive less on Safaricom products.